Read The A B C Murders for Free Online Page B

weather, I had never spoken to her.”
    “Did you know she had a drunken husband who was in the habit of threatening her life?”
    “No, I knew nothing whatever about her.”
    “You knew her by sight, however. Did anything about her appearance strike you as unusual
     yesterday evening? Did she appear flurried or put out in any way?”
    Mr. Partridge considered.
    “As far as I noticed, she seemed exactly as usual,” he said.
    Poirot rose.
    “Thank you, Mr. Partridge, for answering these questions. Have you, by any chance, an
     A.B.C. in the house? I want to look up my return train to London.”
    “On the shelf just behind you,” said Mr. Partridge.
    On the shelf in question were an A.B.C., a Bradshaw, the Stock Exchange Year Book, Kelly's
     Directory, a Who's Who and a local directory.
    Poirot took down the A.B.C., pretended to look up a train, then thanked Mr. Partridge and
     took his leave.
    Our next interview was with Mr. Albert Riddell and was of a highly different character.
     Mr. Albert Riddell was a plate-layer and our conversation took place to the accompaniment
     of the clattering of plates and dishes by Mr. Riddell's obviously nervous wife, the
     growling of Mr. Riddell's dog and the undisguised hostility of Mr. Riddell himself.
    He was a big clumsy giant of a man with a broad face and small suspicious eyes. He was in
     the act of eating meatpie, washed down by exceedingly black tea. He peered at us angrily
     over the rim of his cup.
    “Told all I've got to tell once, haven't I?” he growled. “What's it to do with me, anyway?
     Told it to the blarsted police, I 'ave, and now I've got to spit it all out again to a
     couple of blarsted foreigners.”
    Poirot gave a quick amused glance in my direction and then said:
    “In truth I sympathize with you, but what will you? It is a question of murder, is it not?
     One has to be very, very careful.”
    “Best tell the gentleman what he wants, Bert,” said the woman nervously.
    “You shut your blarsted mouth,” roared the giant.
    “You did not, I think, go to the police of your own accord.” Poirot slipped the remark in
     neatly.
    “Why the hell should I? It were no business of mine.”
    “A matter of opinion,” said Poirot indifferently. “There has been a murder - the police
     want to know who has been in the shop. I myself think it would have - what shall I say? -
     looked more natural if you had come forward.”
    “I've got my work to do. Don't say I shouldn't have come forward in my own time -”
    “But as it was, the police were given your name as that of a person seen to go into Mrs.
     Ascher's and they had to come to you. Were they satisfied with your account?”
    “Why shouldn't they be?” demanded Bert truculently.
    Poirot merely shrugged his shoulders.
    “What are you getting at, mister? Nobody's got anything against me! Every one knows who
     did the old girl in, that beast of a husband of hers.”
    “But he was not in the street that evening and you were.”
    “Trying to fasten it on me are you? Well, you won't succeed. What reason had I got to do a
     thing like that? Think I wanted to pinch a tin of her bloody tobacco? Think I'm a bloody
     homicidal maniac as they call it? Think I -?”
    He rose threateningly from his seat. His wife bleated out:
    “Bert, Bert - don't say such things. Bert - they'll think -”
    “Calm yourself, Monsieur,” said Poirot. “I demand only your account of your visit. That
     you refuse it seems to me - what shall we say - a little odd?”
    “Who said I refused anything?” Mr. Riddell sank back again into his seat. “I don't mind.”
    “It was six o'clock when you entered the shop?”
    “That's right - a minute or two after, as a matter of fact. Wanted a packet of Gold Flake.
     I pushed open the door -”
    “It was closed, then?”
    “That's right. I thought shop was shut, maybe. But it wasn't. I went in, there wasn't any
     one about. I hammered on the counter and waited a bit.